


Housekeeping

by iiii



Series: Incidents in Transit [4]
Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/785070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiii/pseuds/iiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What's she talking about, 'wife'?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Housekeeping

Mal stored the satchel full of the Winchesters' personal hardware in the safe that Jayne didn't know about. Then he went up to the bridge to tell Jamie that a) there had been live people in the box, so b) the helm had to be attended around the clock, and c) she'd drawn first shift. She was not pleased.

"By the way," said Mal over his shoulder, paused in the door, "They say they're Dean and Sam Winchester. They say they've been in that box for five hundred years."

"[Chinese phrase], Mal."

"Don't take on at me. They're the ones as said it."

He left her looking dubious and returned to the hold.

After some discussion, Mal and the Winchesters verified that their baggage was still in its original condition and shoved most of it back into its cushioned honeycomb. Jayne and Zoe hauled the barrel of melting ice off to the water tanks. Sam and Mal dickered over the price of passage, as expressed in magic beans and bottles from a distillery on a defunct planet. Dean and Kaylee set a crossbar across the doors of the box. Kaylee attached an alarm device. Sam borrowed a marker and added a pattern of non-alphabetic symbols across the doors. Kaylee took the open coffee bag off to re-seal and stashed it in the hidey-hole aft of the galley. 

Simon set out lunch and ran a plate forward to Jamie on the bridge. The rest sat down to eat. Kaylee completed the introductions, telling Sam and Dean that the slight, pale girl was River, Simon's sister; the teenager was Victor, the pilot's son; the little boy was Hobey, Zoe's son; and the little girl was An Lee, Kaylee and Simon's daughter. 

Simon wanted to know how their stasis chamber worked.

Sam said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

"Uh-huh," said Dean. "I started by cutting down a standard twenty-foot shipping container. Used the excess sheet metal to double the walls and filled them with insulating foam..."

Dean went on to describe in detail how he'd built a vacuum-tight box with an interior cushioned for five gravities using tools and materials readily available at a pre-diaspora building supply store. The crew - the ones who'd had prior occasion to improvise a vacuum-tight box with an interior cushioned for multiple gravities from available materials, at least - were interested. Kaylee was enraptured. Victor gawped like a boy meeting his favorite rock star. They had discussed new developments in metallurgy and polymers, determined that a blowtorch was still a blowtorch, and Kaylee was diagramming the optimal external rivet pattern for a spaceworthy cubic object for Dean's edification when Simon broke in.

"But how does the stasis work?"

"That's the magic part," Sam said.

"But..."

"Dean's wife used Sam's wife to stop time."

The Winchesters goggled at River.

"My _what_?"

"My wife? What...? How...?" Then the light bulb went off and Sam stopped looking so poleaxed. "Oh. _You_ opened the box. I was wondering."

"What's she talking about, 'wife'?"

"Uh... common-law, I guess she means. But in your case even that wouldn't be valid. Fraud. She's not Dean's wife."

"No shit she's not my wife."

"The box didn't really stop time, anyway. Just slowed it way down. If time had actually stopped the holy water in the lock wouldn't have frozen."

"Holy water?" interjected the captain.

"Just a precaution."

"But, the stasis..."

"Doctor. We built the box." Dean threw an elbow. "OK, fine, Dean built the box and I brought him pie. Making it work wasn't our department. I was told that a time bubble would be created using a combination of written and spoken Enochian and powered by a dedicated human soul. Far as I know, that's what happened. Like the man said: indistinguishable from magic."


End file.
